Comcast critics unite to oppose TWC merger

Some of the biggest opponents of the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger are joining forces in a new coalition as they intensify efforts to crush the deal’s chances for approval in Washington.

DISH Network and advocacy group Public Knowledge are among those behind the bluntly named “ Stop Mega-Comcast Coalition,” which is launching with 16 members Wednesday. The group argues the $45 billion deal combining the nation’s two largest cable companies would harm competition in everything from high-speed broadband service to local advertising.

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Members, from Glenn Beck-owned The Blaze to the Writers Guild of America-West, plan to lobby lawmakers on Capitol Hill, meet with Federal Communications Commission commissioners and staff, and mount a media blitz under the stewardship of communications firm Glover Park Group. And while one major Comcast merger opponent — Netflix — is not part of the coalition, the members hope speaking in a more unified voice will help amplify their message.

“What’s important about this coalition is to connect the dots,” said DISH Senior Vice President Jeff Blum. “This is too much power in the hands of one company. The ways that Comcast-Time Warner Cable could engage in anti-competitive and anti-consumer behavior is so vast.”

Comcast, which announced the deal in February, says the cable marriage would give consumers better access to next-generation high-speed broadband and more advanced video offerings. The firm, which retains around three dozen D.C. lobbying firms, has extolled the virtues of the deal and blanketed the Washington area with digital, television and radio ads that make the case for why “together is better” for Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

“Hundreds of community organizations, programmers, lawmakers and diversity groups have praised the pro-consumer benefits of this transaction,” Comcast spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice said in a statement. “It is no secret that some companies that want billions of dollars in higher fees for consumers are paying lobbying firms to organize against this transaction. This minority of self-interested opponents has used the same tactics in our past deals, and their claims were not found to be credible by the expert agencies. We believe the same will be true here.”

A major area of concern for the new coalition is Comcast’s control of the broadband market.

The company says it would control about 35 percent of the broadband market after absorbing Time Warner Cable, based on the FCC’s current definition of broadband as download speeds above 4 megabits per second. But DISH and the others argue regulators should look specifically at broadband speeds of 25 megabits per second or more, saying Comcast would control 50 percent of that high-speed market post-merger. It’s a critical issue for DISH, which is planning to launch an online TV service that will rely on home Internet connections.

The new group is also warning about Comcast’s influence over the pay-TV market. Opponents fear the combined company would have too much leverage over cable advertisers and too much power to limit viewership of independently owned cable channels. The coalition also plans to highlight the merger’s impact on Latino and other minority programming.

“We’re upping the ante here,” said Public Knowledge President Gene Kimmelman, a former chief counsel for the Justice Department’s antitrust division. “Obviously this is a coalition that can’t do the day-to-day advertising that Comcast does — can’t afford to do that kind of full-court press — but we think now is the moment in which the review looks like it’s getting far enough along, it’s really time for a serious pushback.”

Comcast has rejected the idea it would harm independent or small programmers. Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen, who is leading the company’s merger efforts in Washington, said he discussed the Time Warner Cable deal with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Capitol Hill on Tuesday — and heard a “lot of positive comments.”

The DOJ is doing an antitrust review of the merger, and the FCC is looking at whether it’s in the public interest. One option for regulators would be to approve the deal with conditions, as they did with Comcast’s 2010 acquisition of NBCUniversal. But the coalition argues the Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal should be rejected outright, saying no level of conditions would make the deal palatable.

Comcast says it expects regulatory approval for its deal in early 2015, but the review process has been in a state of limbo for several weeks.

Major programmers like Twenty-First Century Fox and CBS have sparred with the FCC over outside attorneys’ access to sensitive TV contracts as part of the merger review. The still-unresolved dispute led the agency to pause its informal 180-day “shot clock” for reviewing the deal in October.

The D.C. Court of Appeals last month temporarily blocked an FCC order on the matter and said it would hear arguments through the middle of January. The court said the FCC can still review the merger in the interim, and the FCC Wednesday restarted the shot clock.

The coalition also plans to highlight Comcast’s and Time Warner Cable’s power in the sports programming market. It says the combined company’s expanded ownership of regional sports networks across the country means it could force pay-TV competitors to pay too high a premium to carry popular local sports channels.

“Both companies have a long track record of preventing fans who don’t get cable from watching games, and the problem only gets worse if the two companies combine,” said David Goodfriend, chairman of the Sports Fans Coalition, which is part of the new group.

Comcast has said the regional sports networks owned by itself and Time Warner Cable don’t overlap in any markets, and the merger wouldn’t change the way those networks are carried by pay-TV competitors.